Manchester’s Kane ‘The Danger’ Mousah (10-1-0), the loud talking, charismatic fighter and businessman is his usual ebullient self when we speak ahead of his scheduled headline bout with UFC veteran Robert ‘The Hammer’ Whiteford (14-4-0). The battleground is ACB 87 and it takes place in Nottingham on 19th May at the Motorpoint Arena.
Having been around Mousah for a few years now it’s clear he’s a driven individual not content with just making do with mediocre fights or padding his record to be fast tracked to the UFC. Mousah wants to take names. The bigger, the better, and in his sights right now is victory over a fairly significant name who carries the moniker of ‘The Hammer.’ “Now is the right time to fight Whiteford,” Mousah tells me, “I think the fight has come around at the right time. He is a guy that’s fought at a higher level. He’s faced high level opponents, even though some of them he lost to, he’s ranked highly in the world. After I get the win that’ll propel my name in the rankings too.”
Mousah’s only loss on his 11 fight professional record came via a spectacular KO from Marc Diakiese. Mousah, because of Whiteford’s close association with Diakiese, could look to avenge a loss in more ways than one. Nothing could be further from Mousah’s mind even though the narrative here does lend itself to a quite intriguing website headline. “The loss against Marc didn’t come into my thought process at all when trying to make the fight happen.” Continuing Mousah said, “Whiteford is someone I’m confident I can get the win over. It’s gong to be exciting for me to be able to demonstrate different skills.”
After clearly targeting Whiteford in order to push his own career forward ‘The Danger’ has had a watchful eye on ‘The Hammer’s’ career even before he fought on ACB’s inaugural ‘Braveheart’ card way back in 2016. Whilst respectful of Whiteford’s position in mixed martial arts Mousah seems reserved in giving him too much respect as he offers, “I watched the fight he had with the French kid Kevin Petshi and that was really when I saw Robert for what he had become. I didn’t see any challenges in that fight. It looked like Robert was struggling, he looked stiff and slow. The follow up fight with Nam Phan, he caught him cold and hit him with a guillotine, the fight with Redmond, well, Redmond wasn’t at his best was he?”
“I see somebody who is tired with the sport. I see someone who has been at the top ranks and someone who has fought at the highest level and not made it. I feel Whiteford is not on my level and he will get exposed. I’m gonna be too fast, too strong and I’m gonna be the bigger featherweight in there.”
As is seemingly customary with Kane Mousah he was quick to take to Twitter to needle his opponent. Whiteford, unlike recent opponents, rapidly retaliated. Chuckling Mousah appears pleased with his handy work so far. “The whole social media thing is good, it’s what we want,” he said. “At the end of the day who wants to fight a boring c–t? I put my opening statement out on Twitter as I always do, I’m confident. This is my time, that’s all I said. Basically he jumped on it and started the insults. He’s come out swinging and I hope he comes out swinging on the night because if he doesn’t he is gonna be in for a shock.”
Its clear Mousah has his future pretty well mapped out in what appears to be a ‘taking names tour.’ He has his eye firmly on the future, not in a disrespectful way to his current opponent, seemingly in more of an effort to keep his focus clearly on continuing to test himself. Taking care of current business is of course his priority but Mousah also plans to continue business as usual after the fight. “When Whiteford gets in there with me I’m gonna punch his face off. I’m too fast for him, I’m too strong for him…what is he gonna do?” Reflecting on his next steps Mousah offers, “After this fight I would potentially consider going back up in weight to take on Denis Siver. That would be a good level up. He is at a higher level than Robert Whiteford.”
ACB 87 is set to go down on May 19th, 2018 at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham, England.
Early bird tickets from just £20 are on sale now or by calling 0843 373 3000.
ACB 87 emerging card:
Robert Whiteford vs. Kane Mousah
Scott Askham vs. Ibragim Chuzhigaev
Pietro Menga vs. Takeya Mizugaki
Regis Sugden vs Azi Thomas